Changed gears with my upper back work last night, did some circuit stuff with shorter breaks to have fun and switch things up a bit -

First circuit was 5 pull-ups, walk over to steel log and do 5 rows with 220 lbs., then walk to the stone loading platform and put the 190 lb. stone on the 4' tall platform for 5 reps. Did this for 5 sets with 2 minutes rest between each, definitely a good exercise in conditioning even though it wasn't terribly tough for the sets, they really kept me moving.

Third up was a shrug and upper trap focused circuit of 50 Safety squat bars Hise shrugs @ 330 lbs, then two handled rope on cable tower face pulls with 120 lbs. with a 3 second hold at full contraction for 10 reps, then dip shrugs for 50 reps @ bodyweight. 3 sets done with only about 60 seconds between sets.

Working sets - Deadlifts - 10x10 @ 315 lbs.Axle presses - 9x5 @ 195 lbs., done in clusters of 3 reps, rest 30 seconds, 2 reps to finish, last set I was totally gassed for having any overhead pressing strength left and cut one set short.

Been out of commission this past few days. On Wednesday I was working in the warehouse for a bit and out of nowhere, boom, it felt like someone stabbed me in the side. Pain has been nagging for the past 3 days now, no idea what brought it on as I was just walking back to a packing station (admittedly, with a 22 lb. bag of cat food balanced on top of my head ), a minute later, it all came on without any straining, heavy lifting, or anything else. Since then, it's pretty much constant minor to major discomfort, can't do much other than sit or walk, and even those two things can be touch-and-go for how much they hurt at times.

I felt a small tweak when I was doing my squats last week, didn't give me any grief at that time, but I may have strained or torn something in that time. Basically, if feels like someone is knifing me just underneath my bottom left rib from the back side, sometimes I'm fine then it'll knock the wind out of me and I'll wince in pain.

Not a fun little thing to deal with, and I'm sure I'll be sidelined for a few more days, but that's life I guess. Lifting will resume once I'm back in action!

_________________"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

As per my other posting today, I took 2.5 months off of training post-injury and through the holidays, only to come back much weaker again. So, I'm almost 3 months back into things but progress is slow due to still having many long days at work and high stress, but it's moving ahead bit by bit. Chest and legs last night -

Squats - 1x10 @ empty bar1x5 @ 135 lbs.1x3 @ 2251x2 @ 2755x6 @ 320, rebuilding slowly and will be alternating weeks of heavy doubles with sets of 5-8 as well as light speed doubles, trying to start working more like a hybrid Cube Method / Lillebridge protocol of keeping heavy squats and deads opposite each other

Leg presses (legs felt like they lost a bit of size, so I'm doing a bit more work than in the past to try and bring them up again) - 1x20 @ 270 lbs.3x10 @ 360 (this machine feels way different from other leg presses, weight feels like it's twice what's loaded up!)1x20 @ 270

Was going to originally do single-arm DB overhead presses, but left shoulder wasn't happy with me for some reason, opted to change to overhead half presses from about 3" over top of head to lockout (about 12-14" ROM) -1x5 @ 185 lbs.1x5 @ 1951x5 @ 2051x5 @ 2154x5 @ 225, felt a bit beat after that, dropped weight down1x12 @ 185 for final set

Played with sumo deadlifts a bit since I haven't done them in ages, just working form to test things out and see if maybe they're worth changing over to for a bit for variety - 5x3 @ 275 lbs.1x3 @ 2951x3, 1x5 @ 3251x10 @ 275Felt better with these than I have in the past, so I might start messing around with them a bit again in the future and see if maybe they'll do me some good.

Been scattered for the past week with lots going on at work, but I did deadlift last week and pulled 5x5 @ 375 lbs. conventional followed by 5x5 @ 315 sumo, which is getting more comfortable as time goes on, will try to go heavy with sumo later this month after a few more sessions to work on form.

Safety bar squats to 3-4" below parallel - 3x10 @ 240 lbs., hands braced on squat rack pillars as SS bar tends to knock me forward every time, just not used to it after such a long break.3x2 @ 180 lbs. for speed doubles3x2 @ 160 lbs. just for a few more speed doubles to get used to SS bar feel again and not tip forward with light weight

That was it, pretty beat up today, but will be doing chest/back again tomorrow. Bodyweight down to 213 today, bodyfat around 14%, still trying to get to single-digit but it sure as hell takes a long time for me to lose much fat when I get below 15% I'm giving it until June, regardless of what happens, in 2 months it's time to start packing in the food to work to get strong again!

_________________"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous

10" diameter log press in the power rack, rolling log into place and back out again between reps - 1x5 @ 75 lbs. empty log1x10 @ 125 lbs.1x10 @ 130 1x10 @ 1351x5 @ 1501x2 @ 1551x2 @ 1601x2 @ 165Left shoulder has been bothering me this past month, so I'm keeping all shoulder work light and trying to play around the occasional pain. No specific injury to it, but was sleeping on it in a bad position last month and I think that aggravated something. Going to be seeing an ART specialist this next week or two for a look, probably will get some treatment to try and get it back to being strong again.

Face down on incline bench DB rows, bench tipped up on seat end so that it gave enough clearance for height for full arm extension with DBs without hitting floor, torso at about 15 degree angle - 1x20 @ 65 lb. DBs1x15 @ 75 lb. DBs1x12 @ 851x10 @ 953x20 @ 65Always good to get in some strict rowing where you can't cheat any reps where you squeeze the hell out of those lats!

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